As I probably say around this time every year, my
close season mainly involves reading rumours about what player we are signing
on Twitter and deciding that it is bullshit. Most the time, I’m dead right and
it is bullshit because either Sainst are never going to be able to afford the wages of squad player from a Super League Club that they don’t want, or because Saints don’t tend to do any business early, despite
saying every year that they would like to. As far as early business goes, it usually comes
down to when the contracts end on July 1.
However, there was a veritable flurry of activity in June, the first of which
being outgoing with us allowing our best goalkeeper to leave on a free transfer
as Fraser Forster departed to be a back-up for Hugo Lloris at Tottenham. Rumour has it that Fraser hated being number
two at Saints behind Alex McCarthy and you can’t really blame him for that but
he’s obviously happy be number 2 behind the French World Cup winner and no
doubt a nice new contract will have played a part. Good luck to him. He was a brilliant goalkeeper for us at the
start of his spell and immediately after his return from the knee injury. He
has also been decent this season but there was a lot of time in the middle when
we were wondering why earth we had given him a new contract as his confidence
was completely shot to shit. When we as supporters look back on Fraser‘s
career, there will be plenty of highlights that will far outnumber the bad
moments. I also had a lot of time for
him because he improved. When he lost all his confidence, he had become a
goalkeeper that was nailed to his goal line but under the better coaching of
Andrew Sparkes, he not only become a lot more confident coming for the ball but
he also massively improved at the sweeper side of the game, and it takes some
doing to completely change things around once you are in your 30s.
Fraser‘s departure, along with the departure of Harry Lewis meant
that there were at least two gaps in the goalkeeper department and after much
rumour, we decided that our nearest and dearest neighbours Player of the Season
was the man who we wanted to challenge McCarthy for next year‘s number one
shirt. Gavin Buzunu wasn’t of course a
Pompey player but he had been on-loan there last year from Manchester City. The fact that he was only on loan at Pompey didn’t
stop you being able to smell the sweet perfume of boiling piss from 17 miles East, on the
day the signing was announced.
Aside from the very obvious comparison with Angus Gunn, who was the last
goalkeeper we signed from Manchester City, everything you read about Bazunu
suggests that this is not a young goalkeeper who is going to be prepared to sit
on the bench for a couple of years. This guy has come here to play and at this
moment in time, I would be very surprised if he’s not in goal for the first
game of the season. He doesn’t have any
club experience higher than League 1 but bizarrely, he has already won 10 caps
of the Republic of Ireland.
On the same day as Bazunu, Saints also signed Mateusz Lis on a free transfer. Lis is Polish and has been playing in Turkey
and he’s 25 years old so five years older than Bazunu, who he will undoubtedly
be behind in the pecking order, so it seems a bit bizarre as I write. However, there are lots of rumours that he
will be heading out on loan for the season so maybe this is a low-cost gamble,
one for the future and see how it works out. He could end up being our first
team regular at some point down the line and equally, he could end up leaving
in a couple of years without having played a game for us. The rumours of Lis
going out on-loan are fuelled by the fact that we offered Willy Caballero a
one-year extension to his contract. Big
Willy signed on the dotted line. It
seems odd that we are now signing players to loan them out, we are like Chelsea
and Man City, we are fucking massive (ha ha).
The activity in the goalkeeping department didn’t end there however, with Eddie
Beach, who is 18, departing for Chelsea. Whilst this didn’t really warrant many
mentions in the National press or even the local press, it is interesting that
he is good enough for Chelsea but not good enough for us and we felt the need
to bring in a goalkeeper who is not much older. I mean, the chances of him actually ever
playing a game for Chelsea are extremely remote and he will probably join the
army of players out on loan all over Europe, but it will be interesting to
remember his name and see if it crops up at any point in the future.
So, where else did we need strengthening? Everywhere.
According to Ralph’s blueprint, there are six positions on the team,
goalkeeper, fullback, centre back, number six, number 10 (wingers) and
strikers. According to my blueprint we needed new players in every single one
of those positions so with goalkeeper having been addressed, we moved on to centre
back with the signing of 20-year-old German Armel Bella-Kotchap. I have to say
that I am going to provide absolutely zero insight because I had never heard of
the guy until the day that we signed him.
The general reaction from people that matter, was that he’s a very promising young
central defender with all the usual attributes, quick, strong, good in the air
etc etc. He has over 70 appearances for Bochum in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga
2, and he looks to have a very promising future. With Armel being right-footed,
it seems very likely on the face of it, that he will partner the left footed
Salisu in the centre of defence which will probably give us the youngest centre
back pairing in Premier League history and when you add in Tino, and KWP and
even Roman Perraud, the oldest player in there is about 24 and that’s before you get
to the fact that we may well have a 20-year-old goalkeeper. It might be
brilliant…. but it might be absolute madness. We do seem to be flying on our
own down this particular train of thought and flying against years of
established wisdom and practices, which basically say that you need some
experience, especially in defence. I like the fact that we are trying to do
things differently but at the same time I find it fucking terrifying.
When Sports Republic bought the club, they did make a point of saying but they
like the way we do things and at the time they bought us, the success of the
Tino Livramento signing was all anyone was talking about. Maybe they are just
taking the success of the Tino signing and doing it more. It certainly seems
that way anyway. The good news is that we can stop worrying about missing out
on signing players at about 9 pm because they’ll be going to bed around that
time.
A new kit release happened, same as every year, only this time it was centred
around the marketing tagline of “bravery“. I’m sure they chose bravery as a theme because you’ve got to be brave to get involved in any of that NFT shit that comes with
it. “The first kit with its own NFT”…. oh do fuck off! Anyway, apparently it’s brave
because it’s a bold design which is quite similar to a kit that we had in 2001
just before we moved to St Mary‘s. That 2001 kit for me is always synonymous
with Dean Richards. Anyway, a single
thick red vertical stripe down the middle of a predominantly white shirt it is but
as usual, at the end of the day, it’s a red and white kit with our badge on it and a sponsors logo ont he front.
The amount of extreme reaction it provokes is always mildly amusing to me. I’m
more concerned about whether the team and the manager take the bravery message
into the way they play next season, not sitting back and hoping to nick a goal
on the break which is what we were doing at the tail end of the season. Maybe the bravery is having a team full of
kids – there’s a thin line between bravery and idiocy.
Oh, stop the press…. Here comes the away shirt which looks like someone has
eaten a load of blueberries and then eaten a lot of plums and then produced
some sort of massive technicolour yawn over a football shirt. It’s allegedly based on the sea and a nod
towards our location. Maybe this is just
me being old but football shirts should be predominantly plain, stripes,
quarters or halves or hoops and that’s more or less it. This will look fine from a distance on a
match day but up close… not for me. The only
thing worth getting annoyed about regarding kits is the fact we have three brand
new ones a season (five if you count the keepers’ kits). Third kits are just unnecessary if you think about the colours in the away shirt. If you want my opinion on the home kit – it’s
ok. Not as good as some but certainly
not as bad as the red one with pinstripes from our first year back in the
Premier League, nor that fucking awful template red kit when aap3 were the
sponsors.
More importantly, we had coaching positions to fill and Ruben Selles arrived to
be Ralph’s number 2, or First Team Lead Coach, which will hopefully stop lots
of people moaning that we didn’t have one.
There are also a couple of new appointments elsewhere. Replacing the mercurial Dave Watson on set
pieces, is Alex Chapman who has joined from Notts County and Carl Martin has
been promoted from the Under 18s to ‘major on ball possession’. Interesting, because our possession was always
relatively decent – it was the cutting edge that was lacking. All we need now is a court jester to replace
Kelvin Davis and we’re sorted.
July 1st did eventually roll around and it was as usual, the signal
for things to happen. Who were we linked
with? – more youngsters in the shape of Levi Colwill from Chelsea and Romeo
Lavia from Manchester City – a defender and a defensive midfielder. I wondered when we are going to address the gaping chasm
that is the lack of creativity and goals in the squad. I was expecting that we’d probably give Shane
Long a new contract – though it was encouraging that he wasn’t present at the
first day of pre-season training….
…. And Shane Long got released, thankfully.
That may seem harsh but the harsh facts are that he’s not had a good
season since 2016, which is 6 years ago and there is a world of difference
between 29 and 35 when you’re a striker who primarily relies on pace and fitness. He’s had moments of
inspiration since then but there comes a time for everyone. For me, it’s good that Saints are putting
sentimentality aside and there really isn’t much room for it in top level sport
and we’ve recently corrected the Kelvin Davis issue and now this – just Theo
Walcott to go now.
Shane, lovely bloke, would love to go for a pint with him but not a Premier
League striker anymore. Like with Fraser
Forster, we’ll remember the good stuff like the Liverpool semi-final goal, the
Villa long ranger, the Watford 7 second goal and him running himself into the
ground for the cause, therefore creating space for others like Danny Ings to
stick the ball in the net. He always played
like he cared and you could never accuse him of not putting a shift in, which
may sound like a minimum requirement for a professional footballer but we’ve
had a few who don’t. I think he’s
probably got a season or two left in him at a lower level and hope he gets to
finish his career on his own terms and good luck to him.
Onwards… and after nearly a week of speculation all over the place, Romeo Lavia,
an 18-year-old defensive midfielder, joined from Manchester City. He is the current Premiership 2 Player of the
Season and has joined for the opportunity of playing in the Premier League
where he had no pathway before. For here
on in, I will describe this as joining ‘on a Tino’ which is a relatively modest
fee, with a buy back clause for the Super League Club. Like with Gavin Bazunu, the reputation is very
good and there’s a reason for that, but it of course comes with the caveat that
he has never played a Premier League game and in Lavia’s case, as far as I can
work out, has only played two games of football that weren’t age group
games. What I’m saying is – don’t expect
him to be brilliant straight away but as he’s joined on a Tino, he may well be,
like last year’s trail blazer. Lavia’s
You Tube highlight reel looks impressive and if he can take that into the
Premier League then we’ll be very happy.
Straight after Lavia came some more staff recruitment with Joe Shields
becoming our new Head of Recruitment, having done a similar role at Youth Level
with Manchester City… no doubt having a hand in the development of Bazunu and
Lavia. Sports Republic are taking over
Man City and no one has realised it yet…. We are massive!
A few days later and we diverted from the City takeover master plan for a bit
with the signing of Joe Aribo from Rangers.
He’s positively ancient at 25 and if Romeo Lavia was ‘on a Tino’, this
is ‘on a Stuart Armstrong’. One year
left on the contract and a relatively cheap gamble (£6m) signing from the Old
Firm. By the sound of it, his playing
style is similar to the man with the magnificent hair but he’s left footed,
which we haven’t had enough of in recent seasons. Now, with Perraud, Salisu and Aribo, there’s
the opportunity for the team to have a real balance to it, if Ralph chooses to
do so. Aribo has been a standout player
for Rangers in the SPL and whilst playing well in that league for Rangers or
Celtic is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, he also stood out in the latter
stages of Rangers Europa League campaigns, which is of course a higher standard,
if only over a few games. The key to
being a good Premier League player is of course consistency over a large number
of games but the raw materials look to be all there. He seems ideally suited to one of the wide
positions in our formation or can operate just behind the striker in a 4-3-3
formation, so will give us some more flexibility. He’s also built up a reputation as a bit of a
JWP-like machine player, having played 70 games last season. Our last few Old Firm signings have been good
for us so here’s hoping this one will be as well.
So, 5 new players, 3 new coaches and 1 Head of Recruitment through the door and
no one as I write, has left for a fee as yet, so approximately £45 million has
been spent so far. Sports Republic are putting
their money where their mouth is. We
clearly still need a striker to replace Armando Broja in the squad but we also
badly need to offload, with Theo Walcott, Moussa Djenepo and Nathan Redmond the
names in the frame. There have been rumours about departures for Lyanco and Jan Bednarek but nothing has happened as yet. With pre-season training
camps starting in a week or so, it will be interesting to see who gets left
behind as the squad head off to Austria for a training camp, including a friendly
against Ralph’s previous employers, RB Leipzig.
On the face of it, the recruitment that we have done in terms of
positions and quality seems to be sound but there is of course, that massive
question over experience. Maybe we’ll be
like the England Test Cricket team and try something different and find that it
totally suits us despite it going against hundreds of years of tradition, or
maybe we’ll be like Jan Poortvliet’s Saints who went down this route and
collapsed horribly. More likely we’ll be
something in the middle but it’s a massive risk but it’s one that Ralph, Martin
Semmens, Rasmus Ankersen and Dragan Solak must be happy to take. All aboard.
League 1 Minus 10 
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